You will see ads on the internet that imply developing a web site is a matter of picking a name and clicking on their ad. While this approach may be fine for personal web pages, putting together a coherent web site that achieves a business purpose takes some thought.
Different people will group the tasks into different numbers of steps, but they all include the following items. We have numbered them here so that you can print this page and use it as a checklist, and to help us talk with you about this on the phone or by email.
The first step is to clearly understand where you want to go with your site. We recommend that you prepare a "web site business plan" that defines your target market, lists specific products/services to be provided, identifies the "MWR" (see below), and even includes some budget figures for expenses and/or income.
If you have grand ideas (and you should!) a preliminary phasing plan for how you will grow is also useful. Without a clear definition of what you want to accomplish, you can have the best designed and least successful site on the web.
Typical Business Purposes: The most common reasons for businesses to have a web site are to:
Businesses that only have a web site to keep up with competitors or provide an image can keep it quite simple. Those that are actually selling online will need more sophisticated sites.
Based upon your objectives, you can put together a simple diagram of how the site will be organized. Then you can chart the flow for typical user visits, and block out the page sequence and identify desired functionality that gets your visitors to your "MWR".
The MWR (most wanted response) is the reason or purpose of your site. It is the one thing that you most want your visitors to do. For sales sites, it is clicking on the BUY button, for information and entertainment sites it is bookmarking the page to come back again, for referral sites it is clicking on the transfer link to the recommended destination, for reference sites it is being able to easily find the information the visitor wanted so they will leave happy and visit again.
If you are at all serious about a business web site, no matter how small your business, you need to have your own URL or domain name (www.yourname.com). You are going to invest in promoting your URL, you need it to rate on the search engines, and it allows you to change hosting services if you wish without losing all your momentum.
The domain name you select should have some relevance to your business, such as your business name (www.johnsontoys.com), your slogan (www.the-most-fun-in-town.com), or your product line/industry (www.4toys.com). Commercial sites usually end in .com, and in general the shorter the better, but the name can have up to 64 characters including numbers or hyphens (no other punctuation).
If you know what name(s) you would like to try, order it right away to save it. See if the name you want is available and reserve it now. (This window will stay open until you return.)
Are you ready to tackle doing your web site yourself, or are you going to hire it out? Just because you do not know how to program does not mean you have to hire a web consultant -- there are several hosting services that provide a browser interface that lets you create a site without programming. Maybe you do know some HTML, scripting languages, or Microsoft FrontPage (which does a quite adequate job for most sites).
Or maybe you want to hire it and focus on your business. If so, we offer a full range of affordable web site packages.
Once your site is established, do you want your consultant to make all your updates and changes, or once the main site is up and running do you want to take over? More about building and managing a site later, but you need to make the decision on how you want to do it before you commit to a hosting service.
Identify the specific requirements for your web site based upon what you defined in steps 2 and 4 above. You will need to estimate the rough size of your site (use x Mb per page), key functions you need (secure server, an easy page builder interface, Microsoft FrontPage extensions, custom script capability, data base functions, email functions, administrative interface, technical support, etc.). If you are going to hire it, let your consultant recommend a service and explain why. If you are doing it yourself, email us your site description and we will be glad to help you identify which of these features would be useful and recommend a hosting service that fits your needs.
Free vs. Paid Web Sites: We recommend that you budget a hundred dollars/year for a paid service for your main site. Free sites are often unreliable, provide limited services, are slow (overloaded servers), do not get the same treatment by the search engines, and most importantly they present the impression that you are not really serious about your business.
Email is an essential supporting tool for web sites and online business transactions. We recommend setting this up before your actual site because you can start putting your domain name and email on all your business materials immediately (see promotion below). You can also start using it while the site is being completed.
We have an entire page devoted to small business use of email that we first developed as a handout for my customers. Unless you are the only user, there are some important considerations for your business.
This step is where you will define the graphic style for your site (home page and interior page), and refine the storyboard of the pages to be included in the initial site setup. First impressions count, so you need to either establish the precise image you want to convey to visitors, or keep it a little plain. Special effects and slow loading multimedia on the home page many turn off some of your visitors.
Most of all, make it VERY easy for visitors to navigate your site and they will find what interest them. One prominent internet expert claims that web designers must now "tone down individual appearance and distinct design" because users get used to the conventions used on other web sites and if yours does not work like they expect they will quickly leave.
Once you have your storyboard, you are ready to start building pages using the tools provided by the hosting service, or whatever software you are going to use. This will include optimizing graphics and pages for quicker load time, and active features such as scripts, database operations, and user interaction features. This is also the time to include metatags for good search engine rankings.
We combine the programming and loading of the site in this one step since the only way to be sure everything works right is to test it on the server that is going to run it (and we also suggest testing both major browsers and AOL).
Now that your site is up and running, you want to attract as much targeted traffic as possible. It is important to register your site with the 6-8 major search engines and you will get the best results doing it manually since each one works a little different. Some of them offer paid services to list your site faster or higher.
There are numerous minor search engines and FFA (Free For All) web site directories that you can list on as well. Be aware though, that many of these will result in you receiving a great deal of email promoting other sites and selling services. These additional listings do not provide a lot of traffic.
There are also services and software that will submit your site to the search engines for a fee. Exercise caution with these - if the deal seems too good to believe it usually is. The professional service providers that do get your site good rankings typically cost from several hundred to a few thousand dollars to do so.
If you are going to take payments online, you must have a secure server (or no one will trust the site to buy from you) to take credit card numbers and a way to process those charges. If you do not already take credit cards for your offline business, you will need to establish a merchant account. If you already have a merchant account , you need to make arrangements with them to use it for payments that people make online (you get the information from your site and process it like a phone order). If you want to process the payments online, you need to arrange for the necessary programming interface between your web site and your merchant account's payment gateway. (Most web hosts only support certain merchant programs.)
The reason we suggest this step after your site is up and running is that you are not likely to get a lot of visitors in the first month or so. However, you need to set up your site so you can get secure pages when you are ready. Most merchant accounts charge monthly fees of $15 to $40 is no sense starting this service until you are ready. (Start with your bank, but they are likely to cost you much more than a company that specializes in internet business. Click here to see a quick comparison of different online payment systems.)
If your typical transaction is for a small dollar amount, there are ways around getting your own merchant account and paying for a secure server by using an online payment service.
Now you have your web site up and running which is a big step forward. Running it successfully requires some regular attention, and setting up a routine of specific web site administration procedures is a good idea. You will need to manage your site by checking email regularly, responding to requests. If you have a sales site you may need to periodically add or change products, track and fill orders, and process payments.
Because the internet is so dynamic, it is a good idea to test different things from time to time. Dynamic pricing is one example (read more about this).
Site administration also includes ongoing promotion, traffic analysis, "add-on" business, and site expansion. These activities are discusses separately below.
Web site promotion is a very, very large business on the internet, and can barely be summarized here. Things such as banner ads, ezines, classifieds, web rings, cross links, joint ventures, affiliates programs, usenet, email signatures, and traditional marketing media (business cards, newspapers, radio, pens and other novelties...) all can be used in your business promotion.
All of the hosting services we recommend provide some promotional tools or services. There are dozens of weekly and monthly ezines on web site promotion, some good and some not. There must be thousands of "expert" manuals on this subject, several are available in our catalog. There are a few guides that we recommend all web site owners to have in their library if they want a successful business site.
In order to make intelligent adjustments to your site, and to know what is popular and what is not, you need to know which pages people are viewing, where they enter your site, where they leave it, and so on. If you are paying for advertising campaigns, you should track how much traffic you are getting from each.
There are a variety of ways to get this information, the recommended hosting services will provide you with tools. There are services to track your ad click-thru's and other ways you can do it yourself with a database (depends how much time and effort you want to put into it).
One way to generate a modest amount of additional income with little additional work and provide a service to your site visitors is to participate in affiliate programs. This essentially consists of placing advertisements on your web site for which you get paid based upon the number of visitors that follow the link. The key is to select good quality businesses that are related to your content area but not competitors. You also need to be selective because you are encouraging people to leave your site to go to another one.
Once your site is operational, you will be able to join affiliate programs. If you are interested in how affiliate programs work, read the outstanding email series on it called: the Affiliates Masters Course by sending a blank email to: tamsraltech@sitesell.net
As you see what works, what doesn't and develop new offerings you will need to refresh your site. It will be necessary to change and add pages. You need to budget either time or money (depends who is doing it for you) for this.
That may sounds like a lot but it is manageable with a little bit of planning and taking things one step at a time. But that is why you should not be mislead by the ads implying that you can have a winning site just by signing up for their service.
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You are likely to have additional questions and requests as you run your web site and want to try new things.
We provide training, advice, or service on an as-needed basis.
